we need government paid tuition- let our voice be heard

Tution vouchers are illegal based on state laws not federal laws. It is illegal according the NY constitution to pay for private school tutions (It has nothing to do with jews and was there because of Anti-Catholism in the late 19th Century, they are called Blaine Amendments)

Until the Blaine Amendment is repealed, vouchers will never be legal (Its is very difficult to change us constitution)

This is a State issue, not so much a Federal issue. You need to fight on the State level.

“Torah education is a sacrifice but the schools should be giving the parents more for their money.”

This again. What more should they give without raising costs?

School taxes would go up a lot if the 5.5 million students (about 500K in NY) were added.

@iced, The U.S. government is not interested in subsidizing education that they do not control. The Catholics have dealt with their tuition crisis by consolidating their operations and combining schools. They also get subsidized by the local Diocese in an effort to keep their tuition figures waaaaaaaaay below ours.

None of those options are available to us since we dont really get along with each other too well and most parents live in paralyzing fear of exposing their child to the wrong “type” of Jew.

@arc,

The schools can provide a better secular education with minimal spending by not treating it as a joke. They can foster an enviroment where the talmidim arent ridiculed for taking it seriously and where the teachers arent treated with utter disdain and maybe even a modicum of respect.

He who pays the fiddler calls the tune. What if the government says that those who accept our money have to teach the subjects our way? What if they insist that 17 year olds be vacinated against sexual diseases (note: pregnancy is a sexual disease from the government’s perspective, and they have long term vacines)? What if they insist that the school teach that “gay” is normal.

Our ancestors always had the option to accept government money in return for raising our children the way the government wants. We always said no (at least, our immediate ancestor said no – our cousins who said yes eventually assimilated into the general population).

Crisis,

Better secular departments exist and they aren’t uncommon either. You don’t have to sacrifice frumkeit (not chasidish) for it. As a parent you can demand they take it more seriously and set an example with your child by taking it seriously.

Catholic school tuition is similar to yeshivos. But You cant compare Catholic schools for several reasons but mainly because the Archdiocese set up is such that people donate there and they subsidize the schools. (it might be similar lhavdil to chasidish schools)

In every European country, the government subsidizes education in public and religious schools.

And yes, schools have to comply with certain government rules. But in fact, those schools that do not comply not only get no money – they also lose their right to exist.

Which is fine with me, as long as they don’t go too far with their demands.

Reasons why we don’t want to be like the Catholic schools:

1. Many of the Catholic schools have endowments.

2. Most of the Catholic schools are going broke anyways.

3. The Catholic schools are usually co-ed, and try to get non-Catholic students. If we wanted goyim in our schools, it would be easier to get funding. That’s also the problem with

a Jewish charter school since a public school can’t discriminate in admissions. In truth if we set up a multi-cultural, multi-religious school with a joint secular curriculum and separate religious curricula for each group, we probably could get funding for the secular part.

4. The religious part of the curriculum is small (perhaps an extra subject or two), whereas

the religious part of our curriculum is typically 60% of the day, and sometimes much more. If we wanted to run what is basically a public school with one or two periods of Jewish subjects, it would be much cheaper.